238 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



the Alaska Commercial Comj)any has taken charge, iii 1870, there 

 has uot been one single occasion where the simplest functions of a 

 iustice of the peace would or could have been called in to settle any 

 difficulty. This speaks eloquently for their docile nature and their 

 amiable disposition. 



These people are singularly affectionate and indulgent toward 

 their children. There are no " bald-headed " tyrants in our homes 

 as arbitrary and ruthless in their rule as are those snufdy babies 

 and young children on the Seal Islands. While it is very young, 

 the Aleut gives up everything to the caprice of his child, and never 

 crosses its path or thwarts its desire ; the " deetiah " literally take 

 charge of the house ; but as soon as these callow members of the 

 family become strong enough to bear burdens and to labor, 

 generally between twelve and fifteen years of age, they are then 

 pressed into hard service i-elentlessly by their hitherto indulgent 

 parents. The extremes literally meet in this apj)lication. 



They have another peculiarity : when they are ill, slightly or 

 seriously, no matter which, they maintain or affect a stolid resigna- 

 tion, and are patient to positive apathy. This is not due to defi- 

 ciency of nervous organization, because those among them who 

 exhibit examples of intense liveliness and nervous activity behave 

 just as stolidly when ill as their more lymphatic townsmen do. 

 Boys and girls, men and women, all alike, are patient and resigned 

 when ailing and under treatment ; but it is a bad feature after all, 

 inasmuch as it is well-nigh impossible to rally a very sick man who 

 himself has no hope, and who seems to mutely deprecate every 

 effort to save his life. The principal cause of death among the 

 people, by natural infirmity, on the Seal Islands is the varying 

 forms of consumption and bronchitis, always greatly aggravated by 

 that inherited scrofulous taint or stain of blood which was, in one 

 way or another, flowing through the veins of their recent j)rogeni- 

 tors, both here and throughout the Aleutian Islands. There is 

 nothing worth noticing in the line of nervous diseases, unless it be 

 now and then the record of a case of alcoholism superinduced by 

 excessive quass drinking. The " makoolah " intemperance among 

 these people, which was not suppressed until 1876, was a chief 

 factor to an immediate death of infants ; for, when they were at 

 the breast, their mothers would drink quass to intoxication, and the 

 stomachs of newly-born Aleutes or Creoles could not stand the 

 infliction which they received, even second-hand. Had it not been 



